Spanish Doubloons eBook

XVII

FROM DEAD HANDS

At the head of the file, Captain Tony advanced through
the clearing, and what with his flowing black beard,
his portly form, and a certain dramatic swagger which
he possessed, he looked so entirely Italian and operatic
that you expected to hear him at any moment burst
out in a sonorous basso. With a sweeping gesture
he flung down upon the table two brown canvas bags,
which opened and discharged from gaping mouths a flood
of golden coins.

His histrionic instinct equal to the high demands
of the moment, Captain Tony stood with folded arms
and gazed upon us with a haughty and exultant smile.

Slinker and the cross-eyed man shouted aloud.
They ran and clutched at the coins with a savage
greed.

“Gold, gold—­the real stuff!
It’s the doubloons all right—­where’s
the rest of ’em?” These cries broke from
Slinker and Horny confusedly as the gold slid jingling
between their eager fingers.

“The rest of ’em is—­where they
is,” pronounced Tony oracularly. “Somewheres
in the sand of the cave, of course. We’ll
dig ’em up to-morrow morning.

“What was the point in not digging ’em
all up while you was about it?” demanded Slinker,
lowering. “What was the good o’ digging
up jest these here couple o’ bag’s and
quitting?”

“Because we didn’t dig ’em up,”
responded Tony darkly. “Because these
was all ready and waiting. Because all we had
to do was to say ‘Thankee,’ to the feller
that handed ’em out.”

“I say,” interposed one of the party nervously,
“what’s the good of that kind of talk?
They ain’t any sense in hunting trouble, that
ever I heard of!” He glanced over his shoulder
uneasily.

The rest burst out in a guffaw.

“Chris is scared. He’s been a-going
along looking behind him ever since. Chris will
have bad dreams to-night—­he’ll yell
if a owl hoots.” But I thought there was
a false note in the laughter of more than one.

“Oh, of course,” remarked Slinker with
indignant irony, “me and Horny ain’t interested
in this at all. We jest stayed bumming round
camp here ’cause we was tired. When you’re
through with this sort of bunk and feel like getting
down to business, why jest mention it, and maybe if
we ain’t got nothing better to do we’ll
listen to you.”

“I was jest telling you, wasn’t I?”
demanded Tony. “Only that fool Chris had
to butt in. We got these here bags of doubloons,
as I says, without havin’ to dig for ’em—­oncet
we had found the cave, which it’s no thanks
to old Washtubs we ain’t looking for it yet.
We got these here bags right out of the fists of a
skeleton. Most of him was under a rock, which
had fell from the roof and pinned him down amidships.
Must of squashed him like a beetle, I guess.
But he’d still kep’ his hold on the bags.”
I turned aside, for fear that any one should see
how white I was. Much too white to be accounted